The Harvard Book Store has some lovely events and readings scheduled for early June -- the main one we're excited about is David Sedaris on June 6, though we just found out it was sold out! Oi. Obvs the HBS would have hosted the former Christmas elf at a larger venue -- like, say, the Orpheum?!? -- but due to the literary rock star's contractual obligations he can only read from his new book of pseduo-memoirish stories, When You Are Engulfed in Flames, in small locations.

How stoked was Richard Johnson when he and the rest of the Page Six crew got to slap the headline "Mailer's Lust Goes to Harvard" on today's Post? We're still getting over the ick-factor, but the item is pretty interesting, if you like reading about the fact that even Pulitzer-Prize winning authors dare their mistresses to write 50-page sex scenes.

In this week's fishwrap we chatted with Mortified creator David Nadelberg about social wallflowers, accidental art, and his new romance-themed anthology. It's 275 pages filled with brutally humiliating tales of love and lust and youth. We cannot be the only people who live for this sort of thing.

Editor DAVID FOSTER WALLACE lead a formidable group of contributors in a discussion of this year's answer to The Best American Essays. And tonight, Elaine Scarry, Jerald Walker, and Robert Atwan will bring their work to the reading stage. So if you've already puzzled over this week's "Modern Love," caught up on all your old New Yorkers, and let your Atlantic Monthly subscription accidentally expire, tonight is your night. That's at 7 pm at the Brookline Booksmith, 279 Harvard St, Brookline | free | 617.566.6660.

Pierre Menard Gallery on Arrow Street has offered space to Somerville-based Cervena Barva Press editor and publisher, Gloria Mindock, for a new series that will run monthly through April 2008. Mary Bonina is helping coordinate the series which will be held in the Pierre Menard Gallery above Lame Duck Books.

If our posting schedule seems irregular in the next week or so, it's because we're really busy listening to "Save Ginny Weasley" on repeat and blushing over novel-length Harry Potter fan fiction that involves...naughtiness:

"Please stay."

Heavy breathing. Then a sigh. "Why would I stay, Potter? I'm sweaty, I'm filthy, and we have classes tomorrow."

Having taken meticulous notes and planned the novel during his cross-country travels, JACK KEROUAC wrote the first draft of On the Road in a three-week burst of creativity, taping sheets of paper together so they could run through his typewriter uninterrupted. After a cross-country exhibition tour, the original scroll has returned to Lowell’s Boott Cotton Mills Museum, where its display will be part of "ON THE ROAD IN LOWELL,” a festival of readings, musical performances, and art exhibits (see www.

The lit buzz circulating around Brookline native RISHI REDDI reminds us of the hype that surrounded Jhumpa Lahiri back when The Interpreter of Maladies — a collection she began writing at Boston University’s Creative Writing program that went on to win the Pulitzer in 2000 — was published. Like Lahiri, Reddi uses her Indian background as a cultural setting.

First, we apologize for being out of touch. We've been very busy this spring putting together all the nuts and bolts of the organization. We cannot wait to open our doors to the Boston community this summer and meet all of you!

Expect a more detailed newsletter soon, as well as the launch of our new and improved 826 Boston website, but for now, a brief update: